


Ain't Nobody Can Offer Protection

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: girlsofspn, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-26
Updated: 2010-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-13 09:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary's at a crossroads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't Nobody Can Offer Protection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ratherastory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherastory/gifts).



> Title from Olivia Chrestomanci's "Crossroad Demon Blues" (somebody's lovely body's growing cold as clay).

It's a bad idea. It's the worst thing she's ever done. Even as she's leaning in to kiss the demon, Mary's praying the only price she has to pay is herself. But she's trapped, John dead at her feet and Dad bleeding to death before her eyes and he says Mom's dead and she doesn't think he's lying her fault they're dead her fault Dean didn't take the shot her fault she took this hunt her fault her fault her fault.

Only way out is through.

She takes it.

Mary could go back to her family. But Dean knew of her father, so he knows the Campbells, and there was that look in his eye when he said "practically family." If he's a Campbell—and there are enough cousins scattered around the country that he very well might be—then half the family will know how badly Mary screwed up within the week. She can't face that; she can't go back.

Not that she wants to. Mary's mother wasn't a Campbell, not even of Scottish descent, which makes Mary's immediate family the clan outsiders. Mary wants children someday, and if they're Campbell children they'll never be free.

Mary could tell John about the family business, and she could watch him walk away. Then she'll still have given the demon a blank check, and she won't have a damn thing to show for it.

Mary could tell John about the family business, and they could hunt together. She could teach him everything she knows about demons, and they could take the demon on together when it comes to take its due. He's killed his share of people, so he shouldn't have any problem with killing monsters. Then she'll have poisoned his life the way her childhood poisoned hers, much the same as he would think he'd poisoned hers if she'd joined the Woman Marines when he enlisted.

Mary could tell John about the family business, and they could settle down. Then he would feel constantly guilty, because he'd figure out soon enough how few hunters there are; the only thing keeping him from guilt over not reenlisting is that the USMC is large enough that his presence won't make a difference.

Mary could tell John about the family business, and he could hunt without her. Then... moot point, because she won't be left behind.

Mary could tell John about the family business, and she could hunt without him. Then... moot point, because he won't be left behind.

Mary could never tell John about the family business, and she could hunt without him. She could find out what her price is for his life and pay it or get out of it without ever letting him know what she'd done. If she can.

Mary could never tell John about the family business, and they could live like any other jock and cheerleader married right out of high school. Sex. Family. Safety. Peace.

Illusory safety.

She's at a crossroads, just like she was at a crossroads there at the bridge across the river where John died, with each road branching into a dozen others and more roads than she can see, and it's too late not to take the path that leads to John being alive and Mary owing a demon something she doesn't know if she can pay. It won't be her soul, she knows that much, and no one will get hurt, but there's so much possibility in the word 'hurt'—the narrower the yellow-eyed demon defines the word, the more likely it is that the consequences will do damage to Mary or John, or Mary's cousins, or Mary's children.

Or Dean.

Mary has that much. She has Dean Van Halen, if she can find him; she has the Colt he left her and the things he told her. She has Van Halen Senior, if—no, Dean spoke of him in the past tense, and Dean took his father's journal. Why did he leave the Colt, though? He drove fourteen hours to get it and fourteen hours back; he couldn't take the shot at Liddy's because of Mary, then, when he followed Mary's possessed father, knowing her dad was dying or already dead, he left the Colt behind.

On November second, nineteen eighty-three, don't get out of bed.

What did Dean's father see happening on November second?

It couldn't have to do with Mary's deal, could it? Six months after the deal comes due. A hundred eighty-four days, which is a little more than half a year, and puts the half-year mark square on Halloween. Samhain, all sorts of nasty things on Samhain: that long-exorcised demon whose name is the English pronunciation of the Gaelic word, summer's end, beginning the dark half of the year, the Morrígan's deal with the father of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the day of deciding what to sacrifice to ensure the household can survive what's to come.

It's coincidental that Mary pays up half a year before the date Dean warned her about. Isn't it?

And the date on which Mary made her deal is _not_ Beltane. _Not_ the day of purification and protection against evil.

Mary doesn't believe in coincidences. No hunter does.

Mary chooses to watch and wait. She locks the Colt in her bedside drawer, and when Elkins comes for it, she tells him Van Halen took it with him. Van Halen has vanished off the map entirely, as far as Mary can tell. If Elkins comes back saying Van Halen didn't have it either, then at least Mary will know someone found Van Halen.

Mary gets married in June, the month once dedicated to the Roman goddess of marriage. Mary wears her old charm bracelet to connect with the past, a new white dress to open the way to the future, a silver necklace borrowed from John's mother in hopes that Mrs. Winchester the younger ( _Mrs. Winchester_ , it's a dream come true) can borrow some of the marital bliss of Mrs. Winchester the elder, a blue ribbon in her hair because John drives her up the wall sometimes but how can Mary _not_ be faithful to someone for whom she dealt with a demon, and a lucky penny in one shoe and a two-penny iron nail in the other.

Mary might have to walk the path she's chosen without any idea of what's on the far side of the black smoky fog, but she will bury a line of salt around her property line and she will not let her muscle mass slip.

The whole point of the path she chose is to keep her family safe.


End file.
